Wizard of Legend is a 2D top-down action Roguelike developed by Contingent99. You play as a wizard adventuring through a series of randomly-generated dungeons, with each section of levels themed after a member of the Council of Magic that will be battled.
In the history of the Lanova Kingdom, the Council of Magic held the annual Chaos Trials. Clearing them proved the participant to be worthy of becoming a Wizard of Legend. A wizard visits the Lanova Museum in the present day to learn about Arcana and the Chaos Trials, but at the end of the exhibition, the Insignia of Legend brings them to the past. The next thing they know, they are a last-minute entree taking part in the Chaos Trials.
It was released for PC on 15 May 2018. You can buy it on Steam here
or GOG.com here. Contingent99 has also partnered with Humble Bundle to release Wizard of Legend for PS4, Xbox ONE and Nintendo Switch on the same date.
Tropes of Legend:
- Boring, but Practical: Basic arcana are not as grand or flashy as others, but they lack cooldowns, so they are the ones mostly used.
- Cards of Power: The arcana that the player must equip to use spells all take the form of cards; additionally, many of the enemies in the Chaos Trials are summoned into the dungeon via giant cards.
- Cast from Money: A Cursed Relic, Armor of Greed, causes you to lose gold upon hit in exchange for a huge boost in armor.
- Clothes Make the Superman: Your robes can give you various bonuses, such as the robe of Vigor raising your health and defense. The ones you start off with doesn't give any bonuses until you get enough robes, however.
- Dark Is Not Evil: While the cursed relics are definitely dangerous, they are not inherently evil. Nox, likewise, is a shady but ultimately benevolent character.
- Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors: One element is effective against the other in the following cycle: Fire > Air > Earth > Lightning > Water > Fire.
- Element No. 5: Except contrary to the numbering, this does not apply to Lightning, as it's grouped together with the other four classical elements, having a weakness and resistance just like them. Instead, there is a sixth element variant with Chaos, which represents the raw power used to create arcana.
- Fighter, Mage, Thief: The museum introduces you to the three types of enemies you could face: the sword-wielding Chaos Knight, the Chaos Mage that casts magic bolts in many directions, and Chaos Rogue that specializes in stealth such as through invisibility.
- Fire/Water Juxtaposition: A relic, Poem of Fiery Rime, is a fire-ice variant, boosting fire damage as well as certain water damage. It also adds the chance of burning and freezing for the respective elements.
- Full-Contact Magic: All basic spells are pretty-much melee ranged and many others involve some degree of close combat. Not to mention all the dodging you'll be doing.
- Glass Cannon:
- A Cursed Relic named after this trope raises damage dealt in exchange for lowering your max health.
- Another named Double Trouble lets you deal double damage, but you'll also take double in return.
- Ground Pound: As an earth spell, natch.
- Ice Magic Is Water: Ice-based arcana are classified under the water element.
- In the Hood: Some wizards, but not all, wear robes with hoods that cover their heads and mask their faces. Master Sura puts on his hood during the second phase of his fight.
- Justified Tutorial: The game tutorial takes place in the Lanova Museum, with its special opening allowing you to go through it as if it's a Chaos Trial while learning the game mechanics.
- Like Cannot Cut Like: Downplayed. Enemies do take less damage from arcana of the same element as them, but they still do damage from all spells.
- Limit Break: When fully charged, an enhanced version of your equipped signature arcana can be used. Several relics and builds are focused around spamming your signature as frequently as possible.
- Made of Explodium: The Chaos Trials have a number of rooms that are occupied by exploding barrels. It's very easy to bait enemies into detonating them, too.
- By equipping relic called Whimsical Explodium, a wizard may cause the defeated enemy to explode.
- Natural Elements: Most arcana fall under either fire, water, earth air or lightning. The rare exceptions are under chaos-elemental instead.
- Non-Elemental: Downplayed with the rare element, chaos, which has neither advantage nor disadvantage against any of the other elements. However, it is resisted by Chaos-elemental users, notably Master Sura, head of the Magic Council.
- Our Mages Are Different: Rather than full-on spells, the Arcana seem to be equippable cards in-universe.
- In-universe, there are two consistently mentioned types of wizards. Artisans who create relics, and Virtuosos who paint arcana into existence.
- Rainbow Text: Damage counters are colored orange when a target is hit with an elemental weakness, and blue when the target is hit with an elemental resistance.
- Shout-Out: A number of different examples.
- One cursed relic is a double-sided knife called Titan's Equilibrium.
- The outfit Shift strongly resembles Raven.
- Some achievements are references as well.
- ULTRAAAAA: Land a 50 hit combo on any boss.
- Flawless Victory: Defeat a boss without taking damage.
- I Make This Look Good: Unlock 9 outfits.
- Gotta Go Fast: Clear the Chaos Trials in 25 minutes.
- Spontaneous Weapon Creation: Several arcana involve briefly creating spears or blades out of elemental magic.
- Spinning Piledriver: Terra Ring, an earth arcana: strictly Awesome, but Impractical, as despite its massive single-target damage it doesn't work on anything you'd want it to.
- Stone Wall: A Cursed Relic, Tortoise Shield, raises armor while decreasing damage output.
- Power at a Price: Cursed relics have negative effects that comes together with positive ones... Though some of those negative effects can be diminished, or even ignored outright under the right circumstances.
- Rewarding Vandalism: Some props leave behind coins or health pickups when destroyed.
- Training Dummy: The Lanova Museum and your house have several dummies to test your arcana on.
- Trapped in the Past: The player wizard is blasted to the past after the tutorial. Getting back to the future is the main goal of the protagonist, though this is easier said than done.
